Fiction is writing about imaginary people, places, and events. When you read a novel about a wizard's adventures or a story about a talking mouse, you're reading fiction. The author invented these characters and situations, even if parts feel real or include real places.

Fiction is different from nonfiction, which describes actual events and real people. A biography of Abraham Lincoln is nonfiction, but a story about a made-up president during the Civil War would be fiction. Sometimes the line gets blurry: historical fiction uses real historical settings and events but invents the main characters and their personal stories.

Writers create fiction to entertain, explore ideas, or help readers understand human experiences in new ways. Through fictional characters, you might learn about courage, friendship, or solving problems, even though the specific events never happened. The Chronicles of Narnia, Charlotte's Web, and Holes are all fiction.

The word can also mean something untrue that someone presents as fact. If your friend tells an elaborate story about meeting a celebrity that never happened, you might say, “That's pure fiction!” In this sense, calling something fiction means calling it a lie or fabrication, though the word is gentler than saying someone lied outright.